Rights of Nature panel at the upcoming San Francisco Green Festival April 9th

Book launch for Rights of Nature just in time for Earth Day!

All-Star Book launch events in New York (April 21) and San Francisco (April 27)

Cast your vote for Community Rights!

Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solon to receive award for his work on Rights of Nature

For further reading

Don’t miss The Rights of Nature panel at this year’s SF Green Festival

Does a river have a right to flow? US law recognizes nature as property for exploitation rather than as an ecosystem with the right to thrive. US communities, Ecuador, and the United Nations are changing the way we treat nature by saying we are part of it, not owners it. How can changing law to incorporate rights of nature enable us to better protect our environment?

Please join Shannon Biggs of Global Exchange, Ami Marcus of the Mt. Shasta Community Rights Project, and Leila Salazar-López of Amazon Watch as they discuss these questions and more at the SF Green Festival next month!

We’re excited to announce the April 20 book release: The Rights of Nature, The Case for a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. The book is co-produced by Global Exchange, the Council of Canadians and Fundacion Pachamama. It includes chapters by GX Community Rights director, Shannon Biggs, and includes essays and interviews from inspiring activists including Maude Barlow, Vandana Shiva, Desmond Tutu, Eduardo Galeano, Cormac Cullinan Bolivian President Evo Morales among others.

Following a recently released GX report on the Rights of Nature, the book reveals the path of a movement driving the cultural and legal shift that is necessary to transform our human relationship with nature away from being property-based and towards a rights-based model of balance being driven from the grassroots up to the United Nations.

Get YOUR COPY NOW: contact the Community Rights program Assistant, Kylie Nealis or call 415.575.5551

We will also be hosting an event to launch both books, The Rights of Nature and Cormac Cullinan's 2nd edition of Wild Law in SF. The event will include a panel on the Rights of Nature featuring Cormac Cullinan, Bill Twist of Fundacion Pachamama, and Global Exchange's Shannon Biggs.

When: Wednesday, April 27th 7:00-9:00 pm

Where: The First Unitarian Universalist Church - located at 1187 Franklin Street (at Geary) in San Francisco

For more information about ether of these events, please contact Kylie Nealis

We just took a cruise around the site, and noticed that the City Council in Pittsburgh is currentlyin the lead for their brave stance outlawing harmful gas drilling by elevating community and nature’s rights above corporate so-called “rights”! Visit the Human Rights Award website to spur on community rights in Pittsburgh or the candidate of your choice

Voting takes less than 1 minute, and the winner of the People’s Choice Awards will receive $1,000 toward their work and national recognition at our upcoming Human Rights Awards gala in San Francisco on June 1st. Voting ends soon so cast your ballots now!

Pablo Solon recognized for his international work for Nature’s Rights

More than just a diplomat, Bolivian Ambassador to the United Nations, and chief Climate Change negotiator, Pablo Solon started his career as an activist, and it shows. As Bolivia’s negotiator to the Cancun Climate Talks he took seriously the People’s Accord and Rights of Nature Declaration that came out of the Cochabamba World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. For refusing to abandon civil society’s Cochabamba statements, he was called an agitator stalling progress within the official negotiations, and ultimately he refused to sign the Accord.

He is a leading international figure in putting forward the rights of nature, and GX will be in New York On April 20, when he will introduce the Rights of Nature to the General Assembly of the UN. (Keep an eye out for blog posts and interviews on the Global Exchange blog)

To learn more about International honoree Ambassador Solon and Domestic Honoree Wilma Subra, awarded for her work as the “people’s scientist” in the Gulf of Mexico, click here

To read about Rights of Nature and climate change at the United Nations read our past blog from Cancun

YES! Magazine features Community and Nature rights

If you haven’t yet seen the recent Spring 2011 print or online editions of YES! Magazine than we encourage you to check them out!

YES! features some excellent articles on Community Rights work including an engaging interview with environmental lawyer and Rights of Nature advocate, Cormac Cullinan; as well as a piece by CELDF’s Mari Margil explaining how towns across the U.S. are passing laws to assert citizens rights and confront harmful natural gas drilling, or ‘fracking’, by corporations in the places where they live!